Whispers in Autumn (2 page)

Danbury Prep is a replica of my other Cells, from the redbrick exterior covering its two stories to the perfectly manicured lawn. We’ve studied biology on repeat for years, until understanding how each individual cell is an identical match to the next and together they create something greater—an organism—is second nature. In the same way, the Cells we attend make up the preparatory phase of development. Primer Cell begins at age five, followed by Intermediate Cell, and finally Upper Cell. Ascension after the last year—the Terminal year—takes place between our sixteen and seventeenth nataldays.

The sight of this particular Cell brews apprehension in my center. My pace doesn’t falter, because being tardy is not Acceptable, but the terrifying weight of my perceived invisibility returns with a vengeance. Students laugh and talk with one another, ignoring me as they amble toward their opening block. Sweat breaks out on my forehead and my stomach twists. I wait to disappear into the crushing black nothingness of travel.

Then some giggling younger girls toss odd looks my direction, their acknowledgment unwinding the tension from my neck and shoulders. Even though I am insubstantial to them, I am not invisible. My peers see me. They just don’t
see
me. Not well enough to respond properly, to befriend me, to ask me to sit at their eatery tables.

As though somewhere deep inside they know I’m a Dissident, and have a built-in instinct to avoid me. They often watch me through befuddled eyes, as though trying to figure me out. Because each human, like each molecule in a cell, is supposed to be indistinguishable from the rest, and I am not.

I am
not
.

It took over a year to make friends with Val and Monica the time I stayed put in Portland with the Hammonds. They grew used to the strangeness I haul around like an extra appendage, even teased me about it. Now that I don’t stay for long, they look through me like everyone else.

That’s the hardest part of going back.

Today a pasted-on grin allows me to blend in, if not be welcomed. My schedule is always the same, and since my Cells are identical, knowing where to go isn’t a problem. I make my way through the quiet halls to algebra.

The swell of kids at the door moves aside, and I head to the rear of the square colorless room. Notepads and textbooks lay atop the clammy metal desks. The lights dim twice in quick succession, letting us know block is about to begin. As they dim a third time they remain that way, and the big screen in the front of the room flickers to life. Beside it, a lone portrait adorns the bare white walls. One hangs in every classroom, each depicting one of the four leaders of the Others.

The Others are our government, our royalty, our absolute rulers. Since they arrived on Earth they’ve decreed what is Acceptable, who is Broken, who we Partner with, what our Career will be. Every major choice in our lives is decided by them. They are better than us. Smarter, stronger, more powerful.

At least, that’s what we’re taught. I have no reason to doubt them, besides the pricks of wrongness their appearance scatters across my skin.

The picture in the algebra room depicts the Other known as Air. The perfect blond-haired man, all chiseled jaw and sharp cheekbones, stares down at us from the wall. His inhospitable gaze, completely black but for a pinpoint of intense blue at the center, reminds us they are watching.

Always.

We do not see Others often, at least not in person, but they see us. They’ve installed cameras everywhere, and adults interact with them via the Network on a regular basis. Their presence is felt among humans in the form of awe and deference. As far as I can tell, no one fears them. Except me.

The Monitor appears on the display screen and pulls my gaze from Air’s intense black one. The bespectacled man looks more like a mole in an earth science textbook than a human, with his small, beady eyes and twitching nose. He takes attendance and we raise our hands one at a time to announce our presence. I’ve never witnessed an absence.

He begins the lecture and everyone starts taking notes. There’s no good reason for this, since it’s the same material we’ve covered three times before. The Upper Cell subjects and lectures don’t change in all four years. It’s clear to me we’re not here to learn, not any longer, but more as a way to keep us controlled and supervised until the Others decide how we can best serve them as adults. None of my Cellmates seem to notice the repetition. Or mind. Their eyes lock on the Monitor, glancing down every couple of moments to jot down some notes with interested half-smiles.

After listening to him drone on for a half an hour, in which I count all seventy-two squares on his ugly plaid shirt and decide his eyes are exactly the color of dead grass, it’s time to move on. Calculus is next, followed by astronomy, lunch, more astronomy, exercise, physics, and then chemistry. Our math and science skills are ingrained by now, but few Careers put them to good use.

Cold dismay pours through me when lunch block arrives. No one sits alone in the eatery, and the tables are assigned by year. Usually we split up by gender, too, but that’s not a rule. For a second I think Val’s waving her arms at me, a seat saved next to her, but this is Danbury, Connecticut not Portland, Oregon. Even if it were Portland, Val wouldn’t save me a seat.

Not anymore.

I force a smile and locate an empty seat at a table full of other Terminals, or Terms, as we’re called for short. The girls scoot away from me as I settle into a hard chair. It’s subtle, as any discord is not Acceptable, and they all do it at once as though they can’t help it. Their faces reflect brief confusion, like they don’t understand why either, but settle into contented smiles in the blink of an eye. The lump reappears in my throat and I work on swallowing. I should be used to it, but my outcast status hits hard the first day at a new Cell.

Instead of dwelling on the aching discomfort of being snubbed, I pretend interest in the portraits on the wall. In the eatery, pictures of the four Other leaders hang together. Air. Water. Fire. Earth.

The Elements.

There are many Others but only four Elements. They are Other, but more powerful, more beautiful. And exceedingly rare. Each generation, four Others are marked with a secret brand. They become the Elements and wield the power to control that for which they are named.

The four scowl down from their portraits, unhappy and disgruntled. All men, save one. Fire is a woman with hair as deep red as my own, but it sprouts from her head in a wild tangle of curls, where mine hangs thick and straight. The blistering contempt in her face shoots a flame-tipped arrow of foreboding through my center.

Lunch consists of identical bowls of salad covered with fruit, chicken, and an oil-based dressing. I pay dutiful interest to my food and half listen to the chatter fluttering about the table. A brunette with crooked teeth and a big nose jabbers louder than the rest, then a tiny girl interrupts. Her inky hair curls away from her head in loose ringlets, and watching them bounce enthralls me for several seconds as she speaks.

“I hope I end up with an Administration placement. I love working for the Others.”

The brunette smiles, but it doesn’t reach her empty eyes. “You’re a shoo-in after helping in the Administrative Center for four years.”

Most people have more than one talent, but when they’re given a Career, people are always happy about it. Which isn’t odd, considering people are always happy. No human on Earth is anything but serene, content, pleased. Except me.

But according to Ko, I am Something Else. Dissident.

The subject changes abruptly when a girl with hair so blond it’s almost white puts down her fork. “Has anyone been asked to the Gathering this weekend?”

Heads around my table shake from side to side. The blond girl’s smile stretches her cheeks wide, and the tall brunette’s mouth drops open, face reflecting delighted shock. “Brittany, someone asked you, I can see it on your face. How come you’re just now telling us?”

“It happened on my way to lunch. Greg asked me.”

Oohs and ahhs and congratulations abound, which I can’t echo sincerely without knowing who Greg is. Their talk about Careers, the Gathering, and boys fades into the background as lunch disappears into my not-hungry stomach. Conversations are pretty much the same everywhere. Since we possess a limited number of topics, it’s not difficult to guess what will be discussed. Occasionally schoolwork, sometimes the Summer Celebration or the movie we watched last weekend. Every once in a while someone will attend a Partnering ceremony, or a death pyre, but those are rare.

The Gathering, unique to the last year, will provide plenty of fodder for gossip this autumn. It will take place in a few days, intended to promote voluntary Partnering. If we’re going to choose our own Partner, we have to declare intentions before summer.

Vines of panic coil around my heart as fear, icy and hot, clenches in my stomach. The thought of Partnering, so appealing and exciting to most girls, never triggers positive feelings in me. After our preparatory phase is complete and we’re Partnered adults, we’re not allowed in public except during once a month designated outings. All work is done through the Network. Our
lives
are lived through the Network.

If I Partner, will he be like my parade of changing parents? Will I travel between Iowa, Portland, and Danbury, a new Partner in each place, none of them noticing when I come and go?

The idea of being cooped up with a boy who looks right through me, working for the Others all day and then sitting in front of mindless movies all night, is enough to bring hysterical water to my eyes. I’ve never seen anyone else react this way and I blink it back, keeping my gaze trained on my empty salad bowl. No one notices anyway.

Trust no one
.

The words from my note leap into my mind. They imply no one should know about me, about my travels, how I have feelings that aren’t always good.

I’ll have to Partner to keep my secret. I know that.

But knowing doesn’t stop every last piece of me from screaming in resistance. Invisible bonds pin me in place, cramming me into a mold that I don’t fit into.

Don’t be silly, Althea. You belong here. You need to calm down
.

I brush the hair away from my sweaty forehead and rest my palms face up in my lap where they’ll be safe. The bell rings and we get up from the table, a robotic staff coming behind us to clear our dishes and trash. I trail the herd out of the room, still working to control my unpleasant thoughts, hiding the struggle behind a manufactured smile. My smiles require effort; everyone else looks as though reasons exist to lift their lips in happiness.

Those reasons are as elusive today as they’ve always been.

The rest of the day passes in a blur, but listening to the same lectures for a fourth time doesn’t require much attention. My peers seem genuinely interested in learning about molecules, equations, planet histories, and the like all over again. They smile at one another in the hallways, a spring in their steps.

My feet drag through the door to chemistry, the end block of my day. A boy sits in the back corner, near where I plan to settle, and something about him piques my interest. His dark blond hair is long enough that it curls a bit at the tips. His eyes focus on the dark, empty screen in the front as he waits for the Monitor to appear. They’re blue, a blue so brilliant it’s like looking at the sky. The same shade of blue I see in the mirror.

The lights dim the first time as I take a seat next to him and open my notebook. This Monitor is easy to remember, a woman who looks about ten years older than us and is passionate about chemistry. She doesn’t reprimand us when we don’t understand, not exactly.

Her smile, though, it wavers a bit. She fascinates me.

I’ve seen another smile waver like that, but just one. The memory nudges against the walls I’ve erected around it, whispering through the cracks.

A Monitor in Portland asked me to clean her room after Cell that last spring in Portland. The way she accepted my presence made my blood sing with genuine pleasure; it lulled me into a place of comfort.

That comfort betrayed me. Naturally.

Even now, remembering what I said quickens my heart and floods my cheeks with heat.

Sometimes it scares me, the way the Others keep us separated. I wish you could come and Monitor us in person
.

The mistake, the blatant admission of wishing for life to be different, hit me even before the sentence fell from my lips. Horrified, I waited for her to turn me in, to tell the Others about the girl who doesn’t trust them. The girl who fears them.

She didn’t. Instead she dismissed me. But her smile…it wobbled.

I traveled that night. My own stupidity cost me my friends, the Hammonds, and the life I’d been allowed to build during those seasons in Portland. I’ve never forgotten what I am again, never made the mistake of imagining that I belong.

The boy next to me shifts in his seat, leaning down to get a new pencil out of his battered bag and jarring me out of my reverie. His head ends up near my right elbow as he rummages, and the change in position sends a gust of air my direction. The permeating, distinctive smell of pine threatens to overwhelm me. It’s not unpleasant, just forceful, and a slow breath helps me acclimate.

When he straightens up and catches me watching him, a blush creeps across his pale cheeks. He turns his attention back to the screen, nearly knocking a notepad off the desk in his haste.

I refocus on the Monitor as well, not wanting to earn any unwanted attention, but continue to sneak looks at my new neighbor. It’s nagging me now, the idea that something is wrong about him. Then it hits me like a punch in the gut.

He isn’t smiling.

CHAPTER 3.